CRIMSON TEARS

I am a monster. I failed to protect the one I loved from the horrors that befell her, and from the fate of the world that was inches from destruction because of them. That is my sin.

Around me the noise becomes unbearable from the celebration of our triumph. We have defeated the terrible Sephiroth, stopped Meteor, and saved the world.

Fools. All of them. Even what we have accomplished here does not steal my sins away. They will always be with me.

The others wonder why I cannot share in their joy. Why I brood in my darkened corner like the monster they all think I am. They may not say it, but I can almost hear their thoughts pouring from their innocent eyes.

He's a vampire. A demon. A mistake.

Haha. A mistake. That is what I am. The other names are trivial, some romantic nightmare I have veiled myself in, I suppose, through my mystery and my silence.

I leave my friends to their delusions of a happy ending. I can wear no smile. I cannot forget, nor can I forgive.

So here I stand, on the deck of the Highwind, this magnificent ship, as I stare out into the darkness of the night that reflects my tortured soul. I find no peace in the gentle breeze, in the lights in the distance, nor in the kind words my friends have given me in the hope of breaking my despair. I shall never find peace.

"I love you, my beautiful Lucrecia." I whisper. "I will always love you, even now that you have faded into memory, and I can only hope that you forgive me for all that I blindly did, and all that I failed to do..."

Even in saying goodbye this way, the only way I can, I still suffer. I know as I stand here, that I shall always suffer, no matter how much time is put between me and my sins.

We pass by a hill high above the plains, and it smiles cruelly back at me with it's collection of wild roses. I reach over the side of the ship to pluck one from life, a red one, my lost love's most cherished of all.

I do not feel the prick of the thorns, nor do I feel how that once gentle breeze has turned to ice. I can only feel the pain and the buried love of my angel, whom I must let go.

I bring the rose up to my lips and kiss away the velvet petals, watching as they flutter swiftly to the ground so far below us, as if begging me to leap over the side of the ship, and join them.

'No. Not this night.' I think to myself. 'That is something I could never do.'

I toss what is left of the rose over the side of the ship, and turn my back on the darkness. Inside are people who care for me, for some strange reason, and I will not fail them as I failed her. Perhaps one day I will find peace, until then, I can only hope.

owari